A positive electrode for use in a battery, e.g., a lithium-ion secondary battery is manufactured by forming a coating layer obtained by coating a positive electrode active material on a collector made of an aluminum foil at a predetermined film thickness. Similarly, in a negative electrode, a coating layer is formed by coating a negative electrode active material on a collector made of a copper foil.
There are several ways to form such a coating layer. One is to continuously coating an active material on a collector to obtain an electrode web and then to produce, by means of an electrode punching means, an electrode of a predetermined size from the electrode web. Another is to intermittently coat an active material on a collector and then to use an electrode punching means to produce a desired electrode.
The method in which the electrode layer is intermittently coated has an advantage of eliminating a coating layer that is not used in a finally obtained battery; however, there is required a means for making the electrode coating layers on front and back sides coincide with each other.
In order to make positions of the intermittently coated active material layers on the front and back sides coincide with each other, there is proposed a method that detects a front end of a coating part formed on one surface and forms a coating part on the opposite surface by operating a coating means based on a detection signal (see, for example, Patent Document 1).